4 months on, I'm finally almost in a position to grab a replacement for the car that was stolen! Yes, that's right, I bought another 1983 2-door KP60 Toyota Starlet! This time with sprinter interior, alloy wheels and a colour that doesn't look like poo! :-D

Obligatory sight-unseen pictures upon which I made the purchase:

So we made a plan and the mission went down: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2651 and was a moderate success. Still some unfinished business, though. More in the next 2 days!

What did I find when I got to the other end of the country? Turns out that there was a bit in the pictures that I didn't notice:

1) Bog job under paint right rear corner, looks proud, though, so likely mostly OK under it, I hope. Will MIG up and make right ASAP.2) More dents down the left guard and door above the trim strip, not obvious in pics, including slightly raised guard.3) Exhaust leak that culminated in no exhaust at all.4) Whine from the engine that didn't seem to matter.5) Hole in the passenger side dash, not bad, though.6) Speakers poorly installed.7) A small bit of boot seal lip missing around that top right rear corner.8) Coolant is a pretty shade of orange.9) Wheels don't look as good up close.10) Rear view mirror not fitted and sitting in boot (can be seen above if you look closely).

However on the brighter side:

1) Diff is noise and play free.2) Trans is mint, tight, quiet, and shifts nice.3) Underside of the car is totally rust free!4) Engine is sweet running most of the time, no smoke, etc.5) 4k/1.3 + 5 speed K50 box == very drivable usable non-annoying car as is.6) Stereo sounds pretty good despite crappy install that needs fixing.

So it's basically a solid car with a few imperfections that need some attention before it could be described as "tidy".

Start a comments thread if you wish, this one's going to be a build thread.

So, I didn't get a 1983 econobox to leave it stock, did I... evil plans are underway!

Last time I bought a blacktop 4age for the other car, so this car carried it north and it's just outside right now...

The 4age would eat a K50 box for lunch, so the plan is J160 6 speed box behind it.

Likewise, it'd eat the diff for lunch, and the diff needs to be narrow, so nothing else "just works" and if I'm going to go to trouble, I may as well go to a lot and get something awesome, enter NB 7" MX5 rear end narrowed and re-geometried to work in the starlet.

Then it's a matter of brakes. I'm planning to mount these up to it with some 260-280mm rotors:

However I'm not sure if they'll fit or not, and 30mm thick rotors that small may be hard to come by. If not, I'll find a smaller more reasonable setup to use.

In order to get a 4age in there, I'll need a fuel system, so the first thing to happen after I sort out the ignition issue will be an EFI fuel system utilising the Volvo pumping gear from the 940. This will happily support some ITBs on the old 4k for shits and giggles and general system honing prior to the 4age going in. https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 1288290304

The starter worked intermittently from the start, but where it used to be "sometimes doesn't work" it's now "sometimes works" :-) Driving me slowly insane. Need to put some time into it before I wire jumpers to the starter motor directly... ;-)

I have about 300km on the car since fueling it up post road trip, been using it on and off where I don't have to park it anywhere suss.

Plenty of little niggles and issues to solve, one by one, though, they'll get solved. I'll make a thorough list here soon.

Gave it all a clean up, went and bought some conductive carbon grease, and reassembled after slightly tweaking the copper for closer contact.

Reinstalled, started first time, not second, then all subsequent times, until I went to take it for a drive later, nothing as usual, eventually worked. When I got back, worked first pop several times in a row. Spoke to Ned, his car was doing the same stuff.

Reinstalled the plasticwear with a full complement of 6 screws, including making one out of an incorrect screw. Now tight and doesn't rattle.

Pulled RHS headlight surround out and refitted the little rubber seal that can be seen sticking up in some photos, now looks normal.

Grill looked bad at this point, off with grill, only 3 of 5 clips present, and two dodgy screws in the top, replaced with two matching screws, moved 3 clips to most effective locations, tweaked bracket for level height, reinstalled.

Topped up coolant with more transparent coolant...

Off with wipers, wire brushed studs, splines, greased under dust caps and splines and threads, reinstalled arms with correct angle, all good now.

Coated some surface rust on LHS wiper arm with rust kill laquer

Found some average welding jobs in the front chassis area, small, easy to fix up, surrounding steel feels/looks solid.

Last night...

I spun the Starlet last night "drifting" around this roundabout that i used to practice "drifting" onin my ute years ago :-) It has changing angles around it, so part is full on throttle and anotherpart is fully lifted and limited entry speed/angle (down hill). I forgot that as I came around past360 degrees of sweet slide and ended up going backward :-D All at super low speed in the wet.

Most excellent fun, and a damn good effort considering it only has an open diff :-)

Perhaps tomorrow I'll put a multi meter on a few things and attempt to trigger the starter directly with a manual wire. I need to get to the bottom of this no-start debacle, it's pretty annoying. Crash starting it isn't difficult though, at a mere 700kg to push around until it's steep enough. Bursts into life easily, too.

Pretty sure that the starting issue is a sticking/stubborn/unlubed solenoid.

I picked up a tube of dieletric grease on Saturday morning to relube the ignition mechanism, as the carbon grease I had used seemed to be a crappy lubricant.

I'm busy tomorrow night, and Tuesday night might involve a mission to pick up a different kind of starter motor...

For the SXE10 J160 6 speed I just bought for this project :-D Will hopefully also be picking up a driveshaft to go with the gearbox.

So Wednesday night might be starter out and lube up night, finger's crossed, we'll see.

The 4age conversion moves slowly closer.

WOF expires in about a month, and when it does, this thing will head into the garage for a winter of TLC and hopefully emerge next summer for a fresh WOF and some summer lovin'. I'll likely lower it and find some 14" or 15" wheels to throw on it. That and some body repairs to bring it up to the standard that I want it to be at. Possibly an EFI fuel system and ITB setup on the 4k, too.

Starter motor in hand, tested before I left the seller's rather interesting place. There were maybe half a dozen skylines there in various rough states :-D Weird. But interesting. Could have sold me a driveshaft IF he had kept it dry/oiled... but no. Pics:

Other starter motor that's actually in the car now fixed! One of the solenoid wires had come unsoldered from the contact on the outside. Pulled it apart and checked the high current contacts and reassembled with a solid good quality solder joint or two, and now it's first touch every time. Still need to pull and regrease the guts of the ignition switch as the stuff I used was no good and I have the proper stuff now.

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